Larry Smart has been promoted to Professor effective April 1. Smart is based at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, in Geneva, N.Y., where his lab focuses on breeding, genetics, genomics, and physiology of shrub willow bioenergy crops. He is the co-leader of a recently funded $1 million USDA-DOE grant looking at shrub willow rust-resistance, and part of the team for the Cornell Climate Plan Reflections project funded by the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future Academic Venture Fund. Visit the Willowpedia website for more information about Smart’s work.
Gennaro Fazio, Research Geneticist with the USDA-ARS, Plant Genetic Resources Unit (PGRU) in Geneva, N.Y., and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Horticulture Section has been promoted to GS14 in the ARS career ladder system.
Fazio joined PGRU in 2001 and since then has been leading the joint USDA-ARS and Cornell University Apple Rootstock Breeding Program. He is internationally recognized as a breeder and developer of several Geneva® apple rootstocks. Under his leadership, production of the first highly productive apple rootstocks resistant to fire blight and wooly apple aphid and replant-tolerant went from a few thousand per year in 2001 to 6 million in 2015. That effort earned the team both the USDA-ARS 2014 North Atlantic Area Technology Transfer Award and the 2015 Federal Laboratory Consortium “Excellence in Technology Transfer” award.
Fazio has been consulted by scientific and industry representatives from all over the world engaged in the application of rootstock technologies. He has authored or co-authored 47 peer reviewed publications and produced 18 issued plant patents or plant breeder’s rights and authored or co-authored 14 publications in trade journals.
Congratulations Larry and Gennaro!